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How to write a Critical EssayPlanning your Critical EssayThis is the most important stage as it helps you to avoid two dangerous pitfalls: retelling the story or paraphrasing and not answering the question. A good plan will also help you write your introduction and your conclusion. - You should aim for an introduction, four main body paragraphs and a conclusion.- You should split the question into four distinct ideas that you want to discuss that are related to the question. If you can’t think of four then three should be sufficient BUT two is not going to work particularly well. - Think of the four main paragraphs as four arguments that you want to make in order to answer the question. Example Prose – Fiction Question The box about writer’s techniques applies Choose a novel or short story in which a central character is presented as a menacing or threatening presence.372681545085Discuss how the writer’s presentation of this character adds to your understanding of the text as a whole.Step by Step - Fearless- First of all I am going to choose the character Fearless as a threatening presence. - So I need to ask myself; how is the character presented as being threatening and what does it tell me about the themes of the text?- So first of all I start thinking about the presentation of Fearless – in the story I would argue he initially is not portrayed as being threatening and we actually feel some sympathy for him- I would argue that Fearless initially is not portrayed as being a threatening character. - This sets me off thinking about the evidence I have about this; we have his unfortunate physical appearance and his behaviour that suggests he is paranoid and like a cornered animal and the assumptions made about him- So I have a plan now for a first paragraph and I have a basic idea about my topic sentence above which I’ve marked in green and some ideas about evidence which are in yellow. I also know that this paragraph allows me to deal with the techniques of characterisation, setting (gossipy, cliquey, tight community) and the theme of judgement. - So I return to the question above; how is he then portrayed as threatening?- I could argue that As the story progresses we lose some sympathy for Fearless as we learn about his violence and the way that the town accepts this behaviour. - This sets me off thinking about the behaviour of the people of the town – averting their eyes, adjusting for his mood, using him as a threat to scare their children, the fact you were supposed to laugh even though the violence was real- So I have a plan for a second paragraph and as before I have a green topic sentence and some evidence in yellow. - I know this paragraph allows me to deal with setting and the theme of learned behaviour- My essay has a path of sorts – I’ve discussed him as a pitiable figure, someone to be laughed at and the behaviour of the rest of the town but now I need to show how he is portrayed as threatening- Again, I return to the question above; how does he end up portrayed as a threatening presence? - The following two ideas spring to mind – Violence=targeted towards women and children Setting - tolerated behaviour AND Fearless=Symbolic of the threat of violence towards women - It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to turn those ideas into topic sentences and to start considering some evidence:- Fearless becomes a threatening presence when we realise his violence is targeted towards women and children. > doesn’t affect men, even police(symbolic of the authority that keeps society in order) tolerate him, not seen as a big issue simply because it only affects women/children- The key incident in the short story makes clear that Fearless is symbolic of the threat of violence from men towards women. > narrator portrayed as vulnerable and innocent, mum teaching her how to behave – avoiding gaze, narrator’s rebellion and recognition that it is not right, vivid threat from mum to narrator- These two paragraphs help to answer the vital 2nd part of the question – “adds to your understanding of the text as a whole” – Fearless being threatening helps me understand what Galloway was saying about violence towards women- The topic sentences in green should help me write my introduction and structure my conclusion. Your 4 Main Body Paragraphs should:- Start with a Topic Sentence which lays out what the paragraph is arguing in relation to the essay question(remember to use the language of the question); you can also include the relevant techniques e.g. Galloway makes use of characterisation to initially portray Fearless as a character to be pitied. - Make individual claims that add weight to the overall argument in the topic sentence (Make a Point). - Support these claims with evidence (Reference) and you need to contextualise the evidence (Area of Text). - Explain how the evidence supports your claims (Explanation). This should be the most detailed and lengthy part of your MARE. - Finally you should round off the paragraph by relating all these claims back to the Topic Sentence and Essay Question; it is also really impressive if you can hint at what is coming next. Writing your IntroductionThis should be very straightforward because of the fact you should have thoroughly planned your essay. There are three stages to your introduction:2641550420475- Use the Essay Question to structure the first sentence, include the title of the text in inverted commas and the author e.g. A short story in which a central character is presented as a threatening presence is ‘Fearless’ by Janice Galloway. Please learn the difference between using ‘which’ and ‘in which’. - A one or two sentence summary of the text is perfectly sufficient; it should include any contextual information you feel the reader of the essay might need to know in order to more fully understand your Critical Response e.g. The short story is presented as a first person narrative where the narrator as a grown woman remembers a vivid character, Fearless, from her childhood with which she experienced an important formative experience. The narrator recalls growing up in a small west of Scotland town in the 1960s and reflects on the experience and what it taught her about society. - The final sentences of your introduction should make clear the writer’s techniques (from the box, see over) that you intend to explore and what you intend to argue in terms of answering the question e.g. Fearless is initially characterised as a pitiful character who has a shabby appearance and behaves in a paranoid way. As the story progresses his behaviour is seen to be violent but in the setting of 1960s Scotland his behaviour is tolerated and children are taught to laugh and ignore him. Galloway portrays the idea that his behaviour was very threatening because it is solely targeted at women and children. She uses the character to make the point that women have and will always be under threat from men and society needs to stand up and do more to combat it. Your Conclusion- Return to the essay question and remember to reuse the language from it e.g. ‘’Fearless’ by Janice Galloway portrays a central character that is a threatening presence. - It should summarise the main points of your essay; your main arguments e.g. Galloway uses the appearance and behaviour of Fearless to initially make us feel pity for him and she shows us the way the people of the town joke and laugh about him. The people of town engage in the learned behaviour that you should ignore and avoid him and even the police turn a blind eye to his violence – thus showing that violence against women and children was to an extent tolerated by society. Ultimately, the character is a threatening presence as his violence is only against the most vulnerable and this is made clear in the key incident where the narrator rejects the accepted learned behaviour and acts only on instinct. - You should also give a little personal response but try also to relate this to the essay question e.g. I felt it was clever the way that Galloway initially made us feel sympathy for Fearless, as I was more able to relate to why the people of the town made excuses and tolerated his behaviour. The key incident though was frightening because of the way that it was totally unacceptable for Fearless to be so threatening to a vulnerable girl, yet her mother blamed her daughter and warned her against standing up against what was clearly wrong. This made me reflect on the way sometimes we blame the victim in society rather than the person that caused the violence or crime. - DO NOT INTRODUCE NEW IDEAS OR QUOTATIONS IN YOUR CONCLUSIONIntroducing QuotationsThere are only two ways to introduce a quotation. Example Quotation – Women shouted their weans in at night with HERE’S FEARLESS COMING, or squashed tantrums with the warning YOU’LL END UP LIKE FEARLESS.Option 1 - Embed the quotation into a sentence if you can make the grammar fit and it is short enough. Remember the context – area of the text. Embedded example – The women of the town use Fearless as threat by “[shouting] their weans in at night with HERE’S FEARLESS COMING.”5537835274320Option 2 – Write an introductory phrase, use a colon, miss a line, indent and then miss a line again. Remember the context – area of the text. Non- embedded example – Fearless is actually used by the woman of the town as threat:“Women shouted their weans in at night with HERE’S FEARLESS COMING, or squashed tantrums with the warning YOU’LL END UP LIKE FEARLESS.” The explanation would continue from here. - With poetry it is acceptable once you have already introduced a quotation to then pick a word or phrase out for analysis in your explanation e.g. Duffy describes that the “classroom glowed like a sweetshop.” The use of the word ‘glowed’ is significant because… ................
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